


Transporter

by rentgirl2



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, M/M, McShep - Freeform, Pining John, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rentgirl2/pseuds/rentgirl2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney wonders if he's always meant to be alone and John comes clean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transporter

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to gothphyle for the quick beta and Mellison for the long nagging.

”Do you ever think that, well, that maybe you’re supposed to be alone? Not _you_ you. I mean…” Rodney slapped his hand against the transporter wall. “I mean me. Do you ever think that I’m supposed to be alone?”

“Uh…” John stood rooted in the door of the transporter. When he’d palmed the control to hitch a ride to the mess hall, he hadn’t imagined he’d find the transporter already occupied by a frantically introspective McKay.

Rodney shook his head ruefully. “Stupid question, right? Why would you have spent any time wondering if I’m supposed to be alone. Stupid,” he muttered and pushed pass John. 

”Uh…” The thing was, he’d actually spent way too much time wondering whether Rodney was supposed to be alone. Well, not alone, per se. More like who Rodney was supposed to be with. He’d pondered it for almost a thousand years while stuck in the stasis pod of his future-that-would-never-be.

John had logged a couple of centuries in that pod thinking hard about McKay with Keller and had come to the conclusion that _that_ situation was nothing but wrong. He’d even spent a couple of decades wondering if there was a universe in which Rodney had managed to hook up with Samantha Carter and contemplating the unmitigated disaster that would end in.

Most of his time tucked in the stasis pod, though he’d slumbered safe and warm with the bone-deep conviction that Rodney McKay belonged with him. That Rodney McKay belonged _to_ him. Nothing other than love could explain away a life devoted to saving one man, to bringing one man back for a second chance.

He supposed it could be argued Rodney saved him in order to save Keller but John knew, with the kind of absolute certainty that can only come with a hundred centuries of soul searching, that no matter what, Rodney would have come looking for him. Keller’s death from the Hoffan virus was merely the catalyst that put the whole show on the road in two years instead of ten.

There was no way he’d been forgotten, not for a minute. No matter how much happiness Rodney and Keller had supposedly found together. No way.

He had total faith that someday, maybe when they were 70, maybe tomorrow, he and Rodney would be together.

John just hadn’t considered, as he lay like Sleeping Beauty, how much the waiting would hurt. He hadn’t put together that waiting would be excruciating if he was doing it alone—if he was waiting for his life to start while Rodney’s life moved forward without him.

The Keller thing had been destined to crash and burn and the fallout had been spectacular. John had known that Keller was no more right for Rodney than Katie Brown had been and she was no more right than the next woman Rodney managed to get tangled up with would be for him.

John was the right one for Rodney.

His faith was unshakable; his feelings, though, were a little less concrete.

Some nights, as he wandered the endless corridors that ran from Rodney’s preferred labs to his own quarters, John let himself worry that perhaps it was more a case of Rodney being the right one for him rather than him being the right one for Rodney.

Maybe Rodney would never be able to see himself as the one for John. Maybe he couldn’t feel the attraction, the pull, the way John could. The worry would niggle at John’s brain, making him think that he might have misread the whole situation.

The worry would last until the next time he ran into Rodney. It was unmistakable—the way Rodney’s eyes lit up, the way Rodney’s _whole body_ lit up when he saw John. The only one not seeing the truth was Rodney and, some day, he would. 

Rodney would. He had to; John was banking his whole future upon it.

John stood in the transporter doorway for an instant longer, watching Rodney hurry away, the shattered look on Rodney’s face burned into John’s brain.

How many times in the last five years had John seen Rodney wear that expression of weary defeat? How many more times must Rodney have worn it during the 20 years he’d searched for a way to bring John back?

”I had to invent a new math,” holographic McKay had told him. “Jeannie and the others lost patience with me,” he confided, “but I didn’t let that stop me.”

Of course it hadn’t stopped him; nothing could stop Rodney when he had his heart and his big old brain set on something.

How many years had Rodney been alone with bringing John home his only goal? He’d left a real career behind to teach _junior college_ , for God’s sake. Rodney had put his own life aside to save John’s.

And Rodney had died never knowing whether his sacrifice had been enough to bring John back or if it had all been in vain.

Maybe, John thought, as he pushed from the doorway and began to jog toward Rodney’s quarters, he’d been going about this all wrong. Maybe letting Rodney muddle through bad relationship after bad relationship hadn’t been the smartest course of action. Taking Rodney to the pier and getting him drunk after every fight with Keller hadn’t been very proactive in retrospect.

Maybe Rodney deserved to know that the Pegasus version of a happily-ever-after was waiting for him after he was finished trying to find the more traditional version of a fairy tale’s end. Why Rodney ever thought he was supposed to end up in suburbia with babies and picket fences and Saturday morning lawn mowing and, well, _Keller_ was beyond him. 

And maybe it was a little bit John’s fault.

After the initial shock of holographic McKay’s confession that he and Keller had gotten together, maybe, just maybe, John had been a little angry.

Or maybe he’d been ragingly furious to find out that Rodney had, at least for a little while, gone on to make a good life with Keller.

Maybe part of him had been holding that against Rodney; he hated knowing that while Teyla and Ronon and Carter had been rotting in their respective Pegasus graves, McKay and Keller had been playing house in the Milky Way.

Maybe John had been waiting for this Rodney, for _his_ Rodney, to make apologies for a life he’d never live and choices he’d never make.

Maybe he’d been jealous as hell because _that_ McKay had managed to fumble his way to Keller while _this_ Rodney couldn’t seem to see the one person in the whole fucking universe who wanted him just as he was; who wanted him above everything and everyone else.

Maybe he hated that McKay just a little, for having the courage to build something when his life in the Pegasus galaxy had fallen apart. Maybe John was afraid that he wouldn’t have been that brave in the same situation.

He wondered how brave he’d had been if a cardigan wearing holographic McKay hadn’t been waiting for him, guiding him to safety, watching him slumber, sending him back. John hoped to God that the exploding sun had set holographic McKay free. 

John’s jogging became an all-out sprint.

Rodney had already made it to his quarters; John heard the door _whoosh_ shut an instant before he rounded the corner. John raised his hand to activate the door latch then hesitated.

Maybe he should wait a while; Rodney and Keller had only broken it off a couple of months ago. More like six months ago, really, but maybe Rodney wasn’t over them yet. Rodney could be stupid that way; John knew that for a fact.

Katie Brown had been given one too many second chances, in his humble opinion. And Rodney,in his mostly straight-guy way, hadn’t even know it was over until Keller and Carter told him.

From what Lorne had said, Rodney’s crush on Carter had been ridiculously obvious to everyone at Cheyenne Mountain and a running joke for the SGC for years. Carter had paid back Rodney’s foolish attempts at a hook up with public scorn. And while Rodney might have completely mishandled the whole “Teal’c is stuck in the gate” thing, Carter ensuring Rodney’s exile to Siberia seemed a little extreme.

Oddly, Rodney didn’t hold a grudge against her. He didn’t seem to be in love with her anymore but he did give the appearance of respecting her. Rodney was a friend to Carter now even if, John thought, she didn’t deserve it.

Maybe that forgiving nature (that was somehow swirled up with a pettiness that even Rodney couldn’t deny) would work to John’s advantage. 

”Hey, Rodney,” John said through the closed door. “Let me in, okay?”

”Not now, Sheppard.”

“Come on, buddy. Open the door.” There was no response and John almost chickened out. “Please, Rodney.”

The door slid open to reveal a rumpled, almost diminished Rodney. “What do you need, Colonel, that couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning?”

”I wanted to talk.”

Rodney gave a wry twist of his lips. “That’s a new one. Then by all means, please, come in.” 

John swept passed him before his courage dissipated or Rodney changed his mind. John turned to face him as the door closed, effectively trapping Rodney. “When you asked if I thought you should be alone—“

”Yeah, can we just forget about that, please?” Rodney tried to move around him but John had learned his lesson in the transporter and stood firmly in front of him.

”No. I mean, I can’t.”

”Perfect. Yet another topic for the Great Kirk of Pegasus to torment me with. I’m sure you can’t wait to share with Ronan so why don’t you just scurry off now and tell him.”

That barb would have hurt more had John not been a little guilty of running to Ronan in the past. “Please let me get this out, okay, Rodney? Heart to heart isn’t exactly my style.” 

”Really?” Rodney sneered, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back on the door. “So, enlighten me, Colonel. What have you decided? That Doctor Rodney McKay, greatest relationship fucker-upper in two galaxies deserves a life sentence of isolation?”

”Jesus, Rodney, is that what you think? That I think you should be alone?” He hated when Rodney’s chin tilted up like that; not so much for stubbornness that chin tilt displayed but for the past pain that had helped make that look part of Rodney’s defense system. “We’re friends, right? I mean, we _are_ friends.”

Rodney nodded. 

”And I’m honest with you, right?” John said and hurried on before Rodney could remind him of the many things, like an ex-wife and being a rich kid, that he hadn’t been very forthcoming about. “I’m talking about commission, not omission.”

”Well, if we’re splitting hairs.” Rodney sniffed.

”The thing is, I might be guilty of a lot of omission.”

”Really?”

Rodney had his best I-couldn’t-care-less face on but after all these years, John could read him a bit better than the average bear.

”Really. Look, Rodney, I…” John cleared his throat. “The thing is that… You’re not alone, okay? You were never alone. Except, you know, for when you were on Earth after everyone died in the Pegasus—“

”And might I say again, not me.”

”Right, I know that wasn’t you except it kind of was and that’s part of the problem or at least part of why it took me so long to get to the part where there aren’t any more omissions .”

”Is that supposed to actually mean something to me?”

John scratched the back of his head. “Maybe?” Words really weren’t his strong suit. He gathered up what was left of his courage and clasped Rodney’s shoulders. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be alone but I don’t want you to be with anyone else.”

”And how exactly does that work, Colonel?” Rodney sounded befuddled and that was all that John needed.

”Kind of like this, Rodney.” John pulled Rodney into his arms. “If you want, it works like this.” John closed the few inches that separated them and pressed his lips carefully against Rodney’s.

”Oh,” Rodney said just before he returned John’s kiss with flattering enthusiasm. “I do want it,” he murmured against John’s throat. “I’ve pretty much always wanted it. Wanted you, I mean.”

”Yeah,” John said then kissed Rodney again.

Rodney pulled back a bit. “I take it we’ve completed the talking portion of our evening?”

”If you get what I mean—“

Rodney looked a little queasy, a little frightened. Then he jutted out his defensive chin. “You’re the one I’m supposed to be with. You’re… you’re…”

”Crazy about you and not going anywhere without you.” John was a little worried he might throw up himself.

Then Rodney smiled that heartbreakingly sweet smile that had so rarely made an appearance when Keller and Rodney were hooked up. “You really mean that,” he said, wonderment evident.

”Yeah.” John felt ridiculously light. Maybe there really was something to this honesty thing.

Rodney took John by the hand and led him back to the bed. “John, you do know this never being alone thing works both ways, right?”

John kissed him softly. “I was counting on that.

_fin_


End file.
